Geeks To Go is a helpful hub, where thousands of volunteer geeks quickly serve friendly answers and support. Check out the forums and get free advice from the experts. Register now to gain access to all of our features, it's FREE and only takes one minute. Once registered and logged in, you will be able to create topics, post replies to existing threads, give reputation to your fellow members, get your own private messenger, post status updates, manage your profile and so much more.

High CPU Utilization every 60-70 seconds

jmiller99

Posted 23 June 2005 - 02:16 PM

jmiller99

New Member

Member

1 posts

I have recently purchased a new Alienware Area 51 5500. Right out of the box, I noticed that the system seemed to "hang" for a few seconds every so often. I immediately checked Task manager and found out the SYSTEM process is consuming 50% of the CPU every 60-70 seconds, lasting for about 3 or so seconds. I have the Intel P4 3.4Ghz 2MB Cache HT CPU setting on an ABIT AA8XE 925XE motherboard with 1Gb RAM. I also have two SATA drives at RAID 0. For video, I have the ATI x850 Radeon Platinum Edition PCIExpress 256Mb
When I SAFE BOOT, the CPU still has the problem. When I use MSCONFIG and disable all non-MS processes and reboot, the CPU problem is still there. I have ran virus scan and spyware scans, nothing detected. I booted KNOPPIX, bypassing all Windows stuff, and the CPU showed normal - so, something in Windows XP is doing this I guess? I have done the Windows Memory Test and full hard drive analysis, but all tests came back normal.
Alienware off-shored all their tech support, so working with those folks is a bit slow and tedious. They had me perform a full system restore, and the problem is still there. We updated the BIOS and Chipset drivers - from Alienware's support site, not ABIT's. Still had the problem.

Any hints, ideas or clues? I've sunk a ton of money into this system. Restocking fee is 15%, or over $400! So I'd rather get this fixed. Any help would be appreciated...